The inevitable FEMA lawsuit has been filed
(OK, full disclosure: yr humble blogmother has in the past worked indirectly for at least two of the attorneys who are bringing the following suit:)
A lawsuit filed in Louisiana is seeking class-action status for its claims that FEMA did not provide aid timely and then withheld aid unfairly from hurricane victims in need. The case is McWaters v. FEMA, Case No. 05-5488, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, filed this past Thursday, Nov. 10 by the New York firm of Schulte Roth & Zabel (acting pro bono), the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Southern University Law Center professor John K. Pierre, the Public Interest Law Project, and the Equal Justice Society. If you want to read the complaint they've posted it here. (Warning, it's a large file of 3.8 MB.) The 63-page complaint pulls no punches. It begins with a large dollop of rhetoric and many personal stories of hardships faced alone, and thence on into fifteen causes of action.
The Public Interest Law Project is represented on the complaint by California attorney Steve Ronfeldt, who has experience with precisely this kind of case. Mr. Ronfeldt worked on the Jimmie Smith v. FEMA case for low-income victims of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake who were denied federal benefits because the homes they lost were either in residential hotels that refused to rent on a long-term basis, or shared with unrelated roommates who had already received checks.
In other hurricane recovery news.... in Houston, some evacuees have emergency housing vouchers that can't be used at all because they don't cover the full rents of available apartments [MORE: House Democrats are upset about victims possibly losing housing for lack of administrative coordination.]... At FEMA, the no-bid contracts that were going to be reopened are still not reopened... and in Mississippi there's a standoff over who pays campground fees.
A lawsuit filed in Louisiana is seeking class-action status for its claims that FEMA did not provide aid timely and then withheld aid unfairly from hurricane victims in need. The case is McWaters v. FEMA, Case No. 05-5488, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, filed this past Thursday, Nov. 10 by the New York firm of Schulte Roth & Zabel (acting pro bono), the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Southern University Law Center professor John K. Pierre, the Public Interest Law Project, and the Equal Justice Society. If you want to read the complaint they've posted it here. (Warning, it's a large file of 3.8 MB.) The 63-page complaint pulls no punches. It begins with a large dollop of rhetoric and many personal stories of hardships faced alone, and thence on into fifteen causes of action.
The Public Interest Law Project is represented on the complaint by California attorney Steve Ronfeldt, who has experience with precisely this kind of case. Mr. Ronfeldt worked on the Jimmie Smith v. FEMA case for low-income victims of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake who were denied federal benefits because the homes they lost were either in residential hotels that refused to rent on a long-term basis, or shared with unrelated roommates who had already received checks.
In other hurricane recovery news.... in Houston, some evacuees have emergency housing vouchers that can't be used at all because they don't cover the full rents of available apartments [MORE: House Democrats are upset about victims possibly losing housing for lack of administrative coordination.]... At FEMA, the no-bid contracts that were going to be reopened are still not reopened... and in Mississippi there's a standoff over who pays campground fees.
posted by Martha Bridegam at 11:08 AM
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